Thursday, May 01, 2008

HATE and the Fruit Tree

Barack Obama gave his "More Perfect Union" speech in Philadelphia on March 18 to tamp down the furor caused by the release of videos excerpts of his pastor's sermons. Obama himself had proclaimed the importance of his pastor to his life over the past twenty years in books and interviews. Both circumstantial and direct evidence demonstrated Obama's knowledge of Reverend Wright's sick and indefensible views.

Rather than forthrightly condemn them in his Philadelphia speech, Obama chose to give the appearance of transcending them. Obama reviewed American history going back to the founding, provided autobiographical reflections, and presented himself as the man come to redeem racial relations in the United States. Obama denied familiarity with the statements whose revelation gave rise to his speech and suggested that they unfairly represented the man. Obama's speech provided the larger context for understanding Wright. Here is the key passage:

Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to myChristian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

As long as they were black homeless, black needy, black HIV sufferers. Our personal experience with Trinity is that it is a racist, white hating, and clearly AMERICAN hating church.

The Reverend Wright is a hater. He HATES. It doesn't really matter what he HATES, a man of God would not HATE. Would he?

Barak Obama made a fine speech about supporting the man behind the public persona, now Obama claims to have bitten into the apple from the tree of knowledge. Now that we have all seen that man, we must question, no, we must HOLD Barak Obama to his claim:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother...

By their fruits you shall know them. Apparently, after 20 years of being a student of the Rev Wright, we all better acknowledge that Obama is THE fruit that has fallen not far from the tree. And like an apple just fallen from the tree, it is just a matter of time for the rot to appear.